News
Education
Feb. 21, 2002
Report-Card Writing
Dicta Column - By Mary F. Burns - Legal settlements involving public companies or class actions often have a public education component as part of the settlement terms. One very familiar example is the widespread "Anti-Tobacco" campaign that discourages smoking, part of the massive state settlement agreements in the late 1990s. But while this seems simple enough to accomplish, lawyers often don't know exactly how to implement the program.
Dicta Column
By Mary F. Burns
Legal settlements involving public companies or class actions often have a public education component as part of the settlement terms. One very familiar example is the widespread "Anti-Tobacco" campaign that discourages smoking, part of the massive state settlement agreements in the late 1990s. But while this seems simple enough to accomplish, lawyers often don't know exactly how to implement the program.
Sometimes the public is a narrow, specialized audience, as in the settlement terms of a private lawsuit against M.I.T. brought by a couple whose undergraduate son died in 1997 of alcohol poisoning after a night of hazing. The university committed to "chang[e] the campus environment to promote healthy behavior and prevent unhealthy student decisions" through awareness programs.
Periodic reports to an oversight body often are required, which often include measurements of the impact and objectives achieved. A final report and possibly an audit complete the program. And while the education part is important, the report is just as important in terms of presenting the results of your efforts clearly and correctly. The following suggestions will help lawyers plan and execute reports worthy of their names:
• Define your goals and devise a way to measure results. It's hard to measure something as ephemeral as "increased public awareness," but it's far from impossible.
First, focus on the issue or subject that the program is going to present, and develop your message. Take, for example, the message: "In California, children under 4 years of age or weighing less than 40 pounds must ride in a child-safety car seat in the back seat of a car." If the goal is to increase public awareness, find out what the level of public awareness is now, and then figure out how to test and measure the change in awareness over the life of your program.
This can be done through written or phone surveys, focus groups, direct mail response cards or "mall intercepts." Professional marketing survey organizations can help you through this process.
• Know your audience. Decide whose awareness you are trying to increase. The "public-at-large" is a large audience, but all those people out there belong to groups and subgroups as citizens, consumers, churchgoers, dog-walkers, etc. And whatever subject your program is presenting, there are associations, community groups, specialty stores, Web sites and events that attract the people you need to educate. In the example above of the child car-seat law, rather than sending fliers to every household, target day-care centers, stores that sell car seats and parenting Web sites and magazines.
• Formalize your identity before you publicize. You'll need a program name; logo identity; brochure; Web site, if the program is big enough and will last more than a year; and handouts such as rulers, pens and mini-flashlights if you are going to be involved in sponsoring, holding or funding events and presentations. Most community groups and schools are grateful for fun stuff to give out at events. Get a good designer who can create a simple and memorable look for your program.
• Set up your filing system now. Files are necessary to organize everything you accomplished and how you spent the money. If your program will involve a lot of community event activity or visual presentations, think about having some of the events recorded on video so that they can be digitally filed and shown on your laptop when it comes time to present your results. Start with main categories such as administrative (reports and budget material, contracts, purchases, correspondence, identity programs, vendor agreements), community outreach, media relations, direct mail programs, school programs, partnerships and advertising. File samples of the brochures you distribute, copies of news media clips, photographs of events and letters from interested parties.
• Move into the plan gradually. You can't do everything at once. Don't be in a hurry to start, especially if you have a complex program and more than a year or two to get it accomplished. Education takes a long time, and you need time to measure whether you're reaching your audience. You may have the urge to send out a press release or do some advertising right away, but if you haven't figured out what you're going to say, to whom you're going to say it and how you're going to measure its effect, it will be a waste of time and money.
• Wrap it up and tell everyone about it. After your time is up and you have your reports, binders, DVD and Web site to show what you've accomplished, put together an "executive summary" which describes how you achieved your main objective: increased public awareness.
In it, describe your accomplishments, such as that you reached more than 30,000 fourth-graders over a five-year period and that feedback surveys indicate that 75 percent of them remembered the information a year later. This information should be shared not only with the original members of the settlement but also with the public or interested parties with whom you've worked.
Mary F. Burns, a communications consultant based in San Francisco, specializes in public relations and corporate communications.
By Mary F. Burns
Legal settlements involving public companies or class actions often have a public education component as part of the settlement terms. One very familiar example is the widespread "Anti-Tobacco" campaign that discourages smoking, part of the massive state settlement agreements in the late 1990s. But while this seems simple enough to accomplish, lawyers often don't know exactly how to implement the program.
Sometimes the public is a narrow, specialized audience, as in the settlement terms of a private lawsuit against M.I.T. brought by a couple whose undergraduate son died in 1997 of alcohol poisoning after a night of hazing. The university committed to "chang[e] the campus environment to promote healthy behavior and prevent unhealthy student decisions" through awareness programs.
Periodic reports to an oversight body often are required, which often include measurements of the impact and objectives achieved. A final report and possibly an audit complete the program. And while the education part is important, the report is just as important in terms of presenting the results of your efforts clearly and correctly. The following suggestions will help lawyers plan and execute reports worthy of their names:
• Define your goals and devise a way to measure results. It's hard to measure something as ephemeral as "increased public awareness," but it's far from impossible.
First, focus on the issue or subject that the program is going to present, and develop your message. Take, for example, the message: "In California, children under 4 years of age or weighing less than 40 pounds must ride in a child-safety car seat in the back seat of a car." If the goal is to increase public awareness, find out what the level of public awareness is now, and then figure out how to test and measure the change in awareness over the life of your program.
This can be done through written or phone surveys, focus groups, direct mail response cards or "mall intercepts." Professional marketing survey organizations can help you through this process.
• Know your audience. Decide whose awareness you are trying to increase. The "public-at-large" is a large audience, but all those people out there belong to groups and subgroups as citizens, consumers, churchgoers, dog-walkers, etc. And whatever subject your program is presenting, there are associations, community groups, specialty stores, Web sites and events that attract the people you need to educate. In the example above of the child car-seat law, rather than sending fliers to every household, target day-care centers, stores that sell car seats and parenting Web sites and magazines.
• Formalize your identity before you publicize. You'll need a program name; logo identity; brochure; Web site, if the program is big enough and will last more than a year; and handouts such as rulers, pens and mini-flashlights if you are going to be involved in sponsoring, holding or funding events and presentations. Most community groups and schools are grateful for fun stuff to give out at events. Get a good designer who can create a simple and memorable look for your program.
• Set up your filing system now. Files are necessary to organize everything you accomplished and how you spent the money. If your program will involve a lot of community event activity or visual presentations, think about having some of the events recorded on video so that they can be digitally filed and shown on your laptop when it comes time to present your results. Start with main categories such as administrative (reports and budget material, contracts, purchases, correspondence, identity programs, vendor agreements), community outreach, media relations, direct mail programs, school programs, partnerships and advertising. File samples of the brochures you distribute, copies of news media clips, photographs of events and letters from interested parties.
• Move into the plan gradually. You can't do everything at once. Don't be in a hurry to start, especially if you have a complex program and more than a year or two to get it accomplished. Education takes a long time, and you need time to measure whether you're reaching your audience. You may have the urge to send out a press release or do some advertising right away, but if you haven't figured out what you're going to say, to whom you're going to say it and how you're going to measure its effect, it will be a waste of time and money.
• Wrap it up and tell everyone about it. After your time is up and you have your reports, binders, DVD and Web site to show what you've accomplished, put together an "executive summary" which describes how you achieved your main objective: increased public awareness.
In it, describe your accomplishments, such as that you reached more than 30,000 fourth-graders over a five-year period and that feedback surveys indicate that 75 percent of them remembered the information a year later. This information should be shared not only with the original members of the settlement but also with the public or interested parties with whom you've worked.
Mary F. Burns, a communications consultant based in San Francisco, specializes in public relations and corporate communications.
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